


Who's Left and Who's Leaving

by pocky_slash



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-12
Updated: 2008-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24271222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: I'm trying not to wonder where you are.
Kudos: 2





	Who's Left and Who's Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of short pieces about the various TWW senior staff members drifting away. Three of them are revisted drabbles that may seem familiar to the, ah, two of you who follow my TWW fic. ::shifty eyes:: Title and summary from The Weakerthans.

**Mandy**  
She had been thinking about it for weeks (although she hadn't admitted that to anyone), going over all the options, making lists, making excuses. They didn't need her. They needed someone, that was for sure, but she couldn't keep working with these people. She never felt as comfortable with them as they felt with each other, and her envy was making her sick. Half the time they didn't even use her anyway--CJ, with her woefully inadequate experience handled most of the media relations. Sam did most of the television interviews. They brought her in to avoid the ridiculous blunders that they kept stumbling sideways into, but she didn't seem to be stopping the mistakes and she definitely wasn't responsible for their media triumphs.

There were a million good jobs for a woman with her experience and education. There were dozens of better opportunities. She had known this for weeks, she had just been drafting her letter of resignation, trying to find the best time to bring it up.

These are the things she repeats to herself as she speeds back to New York, her letter of resignation on Leo's desk, the radio repeating a constant litany of non-news while her co-workers (not her friends, not anymore) gather together at the hospital in the wake of a tragedy.

***

 **Sam**  
When Sam left DC for California, he left behind two shared assistants, a stapler, a half-furnished apartment, most of his books, half his casual clothes, one suit, two ties, his bed linens, an empty refrigerator, a full liquor cabinet, a goldfish bowl with no goldfish, two empty trash cans and one full wastebasket, his running shoes, and the watch his father gave him for college graduation.

What he didn't realize was that he was also leaving the best job he ever had, everyone who counted on him, everyone who believed in him, his best friend, his mentors, his confidence, and his career.

(And his toothbrush. That, at least, he could replace at a convenience store in LAX.)

***

 **Will**  
Maybe it was Toby's attitude or maybe it was the issues calendar or maybe it was the lack of respect or maybe it was the feeling of hopelessness. Maybe it was Elsie, with her promotions and funny jokes and the way Abbey Bartlet and Amy Gardner listened to her. Maybe it was Sam Seaborn, out in California, not returning his phone calls, with no plans to come back to the Beltway.

Maybe it was his father's cancer scare.

Maybe it was his brother's retirement.

Something made Will think this was a good idea. Something made Will forget that Bartlet was who he supported, the ideal that he wanted. Or, rather, something made Will realize that being in this position, being alone in this White House, doing nothing other than going over calendars with highlighters, was not what he came here to do.

And he said he'd take the job for Sam Seaborn and he said he'd take the job to help Toby Zeigler and he said he'd take the job to serve the President, but now that's all changed. He has no access to the President, Toby Zeigler denies his help, and Sam Seaborn acts like Will doesn't exist. It's a no-win situation in the West Wing.

In the OEOB, the junior staffers look up to him. He doesn't even work there yet and they whisper when he walks into a room. They smile shyly at him. They think he can reinvent their boss.

So he thinks of Elsie's success, of Sam's change of address, of Toby's lack of faith, of his father's health, of Tommy's retirement. He thinks of his legacy, or lack thereof, and he shakes Russell's hand and signs the contract.

***

 **Donna**  
Donna kept a list in the top right hand drawer of her desk. It consisted of, at any given time, fifteen to twenty bullet points of things she wanted to tell Josh before she couldn't anymore. She updated it every few weeks, taking off the things that she had already told him, the things that didn't seem important anymore, and the things she didn't care about anymore. She'd add a bullet or two each time--some new idea or feeling or angry reaction to something he did or said--and, in the end, the additions and subtractions just about equaled out.

After Gaza, she wanted so badly to go down the list that her hands shook every time she spoke to Josh. Watching him sit there, right next to her bed, eager to hear any words she could sound out, made her nearly ache with the need to finally push all of the mundane minutia out of the way and finally attack the list that had been growing for nearly six years.

It wasn't with her, though. It was in her desk in Washington, a million miles away and completely inaccessible. She comforted herself with the thought that it wasn't going anywhere. She could always get to it when she got back.

When she packed up her desk after the long conversation with Will and the frustratingly shorter one with Josh, she spent a lot of time staring at the list before adding it to the top of her box. If anything this made items one through four (which never changed, not even after Rosslyn, not even after Amy) that much easier to deal with. After all, it wasn't like she was never going to see Josh again, and maybe, the next time he saw her, he'd understand that too.

***

 **Josh**  
Leo once said, "Josh, I love you like a son and I know that you're a screwed up son of a bitch, but if you keep a chokehold on everyone you care about, they're gonna leave before you get up the guts to do anything about it."

He said it when he and Mandy were first dating, and it was true, then. It was also true when Sam walked out on the Bartlet White House to his own suicidal candidacy. It was with Amy, in a way, and now it's true with Donna and it's going to be true with Bartlet too.

Because things have changed now. They're different and they hurt and it's all sharp edges, faded enthusiasm. Sam isn't on the other side of the hall. CJ doesn't like to sit around and throw popcorn kernels at Toby while he's working. Toby is sullen and angry so much of the time, Leo and the President aren't on speaking terms half the time, and Donna...

Donna is the icing on a truly pathetic cake, the most beautiful, perfect, delicious cake that Josh has ever seen. The cake that he's going to be left alone to eat.

Matt isn't Sam. He isn't Sam or CJ or Toby. He's certainly not Jed Bartlet. But he's someone who needs Josh, these days, it seems like he's the only one who needs Josh. And Josh needs to be needed.

***

 **Toby**  
Early in his political career, Toby told an old girlfriend that he liked politics because he couldn't stand being happy and at least in politics no one ever expected you to smile.

"Especially when you're so constantly surrounded by failure," she had remarked with a cheeky grin. He'd liked her. She was a spitfire. She once told him that she never met someone who was so good at self-sabotage, at destroying things because it was easier than dealing with them.

"It's not a complaint," she said. "I'm just saying. It's hilarious."

He found himself thinking about her, strangely enough, while sitting in his apartment, waiting for his lawyer to show up. He missed the self-sabotage. He missed wanting the worst, expecting the worst, and setting himself up for failure. Failure hurt a lot less when you were expecting it.

***

 **Leo**  
Leo was good at leaving. He left his wife and his little girl. He left Jordan when things got too intense for him to handle. He left Jed when Jed needed him most. He left Josh and Toby and CJ on their own, even though they were more ready to deal with their life without him than they seemed to think.

He hadn't planned on leaving Matt Santos, not for a good long while, but fate had a funny sense of humor.

***

 **CJ**  
Sometimes CJ still woke up in the middle of the night ready for a crisis. It was never a specific crisis, a fact which seemed to amuse Danny to no end. She'd just sit up straight in bed and fumble for her glasses, ready to throw on clothes and jump in her car and drive down to--

That was usually the point that she remembered there was no where to drive down to. No press to brief. No staff to oversee, even. If there was a crisis, it wouldn't involve her and she'd probably hear about it the old fashioned way, through television and the internet. She wouldn't get frantic pages while at the gym or phones calls while delivering a speech at her high school reunion. There'd be no reason for her to run out in the middle of dinner and no reason to stay up until three in the morning, only to be back in the office at five.

While those realizations trickled over her, Danny would sit and rub her shoulder or regard her through half-closed eyes from a distance. His expression was always fond and just a little sad, like he knew exactly what she was going through, like he missed the three am phone calls, too.

"You can leave," he said quietly into her hair one night, "but you can never _leave_."

Sometimes, once Danny had fallen back asleep, she would stare at the ceiling and wonder about the others, wonder if they felt the same way.


End file.
